Lab coats: they're white, mostly plain, boxy. Functional, and ultimately sartorially boring. But ask any doctor or lab tech about their lab coat and they will chat up a storm. Often about how they can't wait to ditch them—if they haven't already.

The young man in this video looks like he's riding a Segway. But Yusuf Adturkoglu was paralysed after falling from a horse five years ago, and he's being mobilised by an amazing device invented by Turkish scientists.

Scientists at Clemson University in the US have rigged an HP Deskjet 500 printer to make microscope slides full of living cells. It spits out a a special cell-packed ink from the printer's standard cartridge. The process creates cells with temporary permeability in the cell walls, and the holes in the cells are large enough to allow fluorescent molecules to be injected. That glowing stuffing illuminates the membranes, so researchers can get a look at what's happening inside the cells. When studying a heart, for example, the technique can be used to examine how the cardiac muscles respond to mechanical force and fluid shear.

Stanford scientists have created designer electrons that behave as if they were exposed to a magnetic field of 60 Tesla—a force 30 percent stronger than anything ever sustained on Earth. The work could lead to a revolution in the materials that make everything from video displays to airplanes to mobile phones.

Scientists are modelling artificial intelligence after baby brains. Why would they want to make computers similar to beings whose favourite pastimes are drooling and pooping? It makes perfect sense when you think about how malleable a baby's gray matter is.

Scientists have created the first 3D model of DNA, thanks to a new software buit by a young Harvard scientist. Depicting the way DNA packs itself inside a cell, we couldn't help but see it as a beach ball of life.

When Eric Rothenhaus landed a gig as director of design at Jansport five years ago, he wanted to make an impression. He would do it by re-creating, down to the seat-belt straps, the very first JanSport backpack (and the first-ever backpack with a zip) introduced in 1969.